Elephants life cycle has a lot of things in common to the life cycle of a human. Here we look into some of the things that are alike, and some that are not. It will shock you when you see what some of them are.

First thing that we can note that happens with elephants are that they tend to live in small, family type of groups that have the old females heading them. Depending on the abundance of food in the area that they are residing, some of the groups can join together. If this happens though the males will tend to stick to being around other males and the females will associate with other females. Although quite different in one respect, this is very similar when you think of the way that teenagers are. They too tend to hang out in their perspective groups the majority of the time.

However, during a certain time frame the males will enter a period that is called "musth" and will release a fluid that is thicker than the one that is released normally. Musth is generally the time that reproduction occurs, both in the wild or in tamed environments.

After they have mated the female will carry the fetus for a period of no less than 18 months, many times this can extend to 22 month. Our world would surely be far less populated if we had to endure pregnancies of this length!

Once the female delivers the baby elephant, we find that it will way in at about 200 lbs. This is a huge birth weight, but is understandable when you consider the massive size of the parents. They will nurse like our babies do, but they can take a far longer time to wean off nursing then our babies. Some baby elephant nurse until they are 10 years of age!

As we go further along in elephants life cycle we find that they often are still bearing young at the age of 50. That is somewhat understandable when we look back at the length of time that the gestation period is for them. They also have a lengthy interval between their pregnancies that can range from 2 and two and a half years upwards to 4 years in length. That is not at all like us humans that can often get pregnant right after having a baby if not careful.

We also find that as an elephant ages they face a lot of illnesses us humans experience due to aging. Many common health issues such as arthritis and cardiovascular problems are found in elephant's. Even with illnesses of this sort afflicting them, they are still able to live for quite a lengthy period of time. Many can live up 70 years or longer, but often this does not happen due to poachers that play havoc with elephants life cycle.

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